Daily Family Schedule

I've been trying to create a working schedule for myself and the family so I can stick to a routine (for once). I am basing it on a MOTH-type schedule (check out Managers of Their Homes--haven't read it, but gleaned some examples online from other blogs). I've re-done it a few times, and I think I've come up with one that is more realistic than the schedules I've done in the past. I'm always trying to come up with what I SHOULD be doing every day, instead of just what absolutely NEEDS to be done. Since all previous schedules were ridiculously unattainable, they went unused. This time I think it is more useable, so hopefully I can actually start USING it! LOL

I used Microsoft Spreadsheet (didn't like it, but it's all I've got) to create a color coded spreadsheet schedule. Most of the schedule is white, and the important events (meals, naptimes, baby feedings, etc.) are in color, so they stand out. I'll try to post a picture when (if) I get my camera charged up.

There is a column for each family member. Rather than list the schedule for each (especially since the kids' schedules are virtually the same and most of my husband's says WORK) I'll just give you an overview of mine.

7:00 Wake, pray, make bed, weigh myself, take vitamins
7:15 Spiritual reading, check Home Management Binder
7:30 Shower, dress, fix hair and makeup
8:00 Set table, load washing machine, start breakfast
8:15 Wake kids, supervise room tidying and bed making, change diapers
8:30 Breakfast
8:45 Wake/change/feed baby
9:00 Zone cleaning, unload dishwasher from previous night, declutter (5 minutes each)
9:15 Clean up after breakfast, load dishwasher, give kids an activity to work on
10:00 Prepare kids to go outside (with three children all under five, it takes a while)
10:15 Outside time, hang up any laundry if necessary, let dogs out
11:15 Inside, kids help unload dishwasher and "reboot" laundry
11:30 Feed baby, put her down for a nap, make lunch
NOON Lunch, read to the kids after I'm done eating, as they finish, do dinner prep work, if necessary, prepare naptime water cups
12:45 Brush kids' teeth
1:00 Put kids in bed, clean up after lunch, load dishwasher, fold/put away laundry
1:30 Project or take a nap
2:30 Computer time or take a nap
3:00 Wake/change/feed/play with baby
3:45 Make a snack for the kids
4:00 Wake kids, change diapers
4:15 Snack, do dinner preparations, if needed, clean "hot spots", do five minute "room rescue"
4:30 Clean up after snack
4:45 Fix hair and makeup, get exercise clothes/shoes ready
5:00 Watch to greet daddy when he comes home, then go exercise
5:45 Family rosary/feed baby
6:00 Dinner (put baby to sleep when she's ready)
6:45 Brush kids' teeth, put on kids' pajamas (daddy puts them to bed)
7:00 Make daddy's lunch to take to work tomorrow, clean kitchen/dining room, load/run dishwasher
7:30 Empty trash can, lay out family clothes, make morning cups for kids, set table, prepare for tomorrow's breakfast
8:00 Get ready for bed, check all door locks
8:15 Spend time together, talk, read
9:00 Sleep

Now, you'll notice that according to the schedule, I will have ten hours of sleep at night, plus possibly a two hour nap during the day. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! I don't think so. In reality, I'll go to bed with my husband, but probably get back up once he's asleep to work on something, or because I can't sleep. Then I'll go to bed at midnight or later, and get woken up before 7am, tell the boys to stop banging and play quietly in bed because they're up too early (we recently moved them in together, and it's NOT working, they're up much earlier now), and try to go back to sleep...but not actually fall asleep til shortly before the alarm or the boys wake me up at 8 am.

Basically, this is the schedule I am AIMING for. Right now it is nowhere near reality. But if I can do even half what I plan to do in this schedule, my family and my house will be in much better shape than they are now! Wish me luck!

Clean Your House Fast

This is a short little article I found on Homemaking Organized. I like finding different "emergency quick-clean" posts and articles, because they each have useful tips, and I plan to compile them and choose the best, to make my own quick-clean list. What can I say? I'm lazy! ;-)

Company is on the way and your house is mess. If you have about 15 minutes follow the steps below to get your house in tip top shape just in time.

1. Trash: Dump all the trash in the trash bag

2. Clutter: If you find something in the wrong room dump it in the basket. You’ll find it’s corrct home later.

3. Bedrooms: Make all beds. I say this because I can’t believe how nosey people are and they always find a way to look into your private bedrooms. I don’t like this but it happens.

4. Bathroom: Go to the guest bathroom and (hopefully you have some emergency wipes on hand) use your wipes. Wipe down the mirror and the chrome with the window cleaner wipes. Wipe the counter tops with the general purpose wipe. Swish and use a wipe to clean the seats of the toilet. Use a wipe to spot check any spots on the floor. Take all used towels and dump in laundry area. Hang a nice clean hand towel and spray some nice scented something. Put out a new piece of soap. Take the old one to your bathroom.

5. Kitchen: Get all the dishes out of the sink.and off counters. Wash them if you have time or put the all in the dish washer. Wipe down counters. Put any food sitting out away.

6. Diningroom / Livingroom: Remove all clutter. Fluff pillows. Stack magazines. Push in chairs and clean off dining table. Wipe it if it needs it.

If you have a few odors open all windows and maybe a back door with a screen. Spray something fresh. Or better yet throw some frozen cookie dough in the oven.

If you have time vacuum the livingroom and diningroom if they have carpet.

Whew! Now go comb your hair and spritz on some perfume! Look relaxed.

Clean Heart, Clean Home Challenge

The Clean Heart, Clean Home Challenge is a cleaning challenge sponsored by Amy over at the Dandelion Seeds blog. This challenge is different, however, because it focuses not only on cleaning your home, but preparing spiritually so that the change is not only in your home, but in your heart as well. I think this is a great idea, because I know that my house is in chaos because I lack order in my spiritual life, and have not put my heart into my homemaking in the way that I should. I think if we remembered to look to God for help in our homemaking struggles, we wouldn't struggle nearly so much. I'm really looking forward to it.

I missed the last one, but I'm jumping in right on time with this one. And not a moment to lose, either, because I'm drowning in neglected housework. Between being very pregnant, then recovering from a c-section, then recovering from a hernia operation, my house is in a shambles. It seems like I take one step forward, then fall two steps back.

Join the CHCH Challenge and get your home in order in 52 days!


(By the way, did you notice I finally figured out how to put links in my posts...ROFL, how dumb, there's actually a little BUTTON for it...with a picture of a "link"!!)

Ready for Unexpected Visitors?

Journey to Homemaker

Have you ever had anyone show up at your house unexpectedly, at the worst possible time? Your kids were dirty, screaming and fighting, the dishes were piled in the sink, the floor was filthy, clean (or dirty) clothes were piled up, there were toys strewn everywhere, and you looked a mess...or worse, you weren't dressed yet and it was afternoon already. Sound familiar?

A couple of months ago, our neighbor showed up unexpectedly to introduce herself (and complain about my dog). I was soooo embarrassed, because the house was a mess, the kids were in their pajamas, and although I was dressed, I was a total mess because I hadn't had a shower and had just woken up from a late nap with the kids. I was mortified.

I kept her in the front hall (with the dirty floor) and luckily she couldn't see much of the house. She's the nosy type that not only asks a lot of questions, but also gets in your personal space. And she feels the need to come over and chat every time we're in the back yard, even if only the kids are in the back yard (really, coralled on the back porch, with me watching closely while I clean the kitchen). So I was really worried what she might be thinking. And of course, you never know if someone is the type to call Social Services on you just because she doesn't agree with the way you bring up your kids. I've heard stories that would curl your toes! My mother-in-law had CPS called on her by a neighbor because her kids were skinny. Those kids were eating the poor woman out of house and home...they were just skinny kids!

You'd think I'd have shaped up after that experience, but I didn't. Not much at least. There were other times I almost got caught in my nightgown, with a messy house, etc. Last week, my son fell over in his booster chair, slammed his cheek on the floor and bit his tongue really deep. I had to take him to the doctor. My neighbor had to come over to watch the kids. Thank God that the house was reasonably tidy, and we were all dressed and clean. That could have been really bad--neighbors left alone to see a messy house up close!

Not to mention if it had been a different type of injury and the neighbor or an overly zealous doctor had called CPS on us, I could have arrived home to a social worker wanting to inspect our house. (Which will never happen, I'm educated on that topic, and know my rights and the steps to take if ever they show up--go to www.hslda.org for more info, and if you homeschool or are thinking about it, JOIN THEM they will help in these situations!)

If you are struggling with your household duties, as I am, make it your first priority to have you and your family members clean and neatly dressed--nothing fancy, just clean and in decent clothes. Your next priority should be having a reasonably tidy house...particularly the areas of the home visible from the main door, and also the pathway to the main bath, should someone drop by and end up needing to use it. If at least this much is done, you will be much better off for it.

It is also a good idea to have a plan in case of emergencies. If you suddenly become very ill, go into labor, etc., who will be able to get there right away to watch your children if you have to go in an ambulance? How will they know what to do if there's no time to tell them? Here is where a home management binder can come in very handy. You should have emergency numbers in it, and posted on the fridge as well. All your main medical info and insurance info should be in it, as well as your master schedule.

It may even be a good idea to have a separate babysitter binder as well, in case you need to take yours with you. It can have emergency numbers, rules for the children, instructions for the sitter, a master schedule for the children, a list of allergies and medical conditions for the children, the locations of necessary items (diapers, bedrooms, clothing, cleaning supplies in case of a huge mess, extra bed linens in case of accidents, etc.), meal suggestions and preferences for the children, and other necessary info.

It is also a good idea to include contact info for other sitters or relatives that can cover if your sitter has an emergency. For my last child's birth, my sitter's husband had to go to the emergency room just as I was going into surgery for my c-section, and the hospital I was in was an hour away. My sitter had to wait til we got out of the recovery room before we got the message, and then my husband had to leave me and drive an hour home before she could go to her husband in the hospital. There was no room in her car for our kids, and she'd have needed three car seats anyway, which she didn't have. If we'd had back-up sitters lined up, that situation wouldn't have been a problem.

If you have a babysitter binder that you keep near the phone along with a local phone book, the babysitter will have everything they need to care for your children. I already have a babysitter's guide with most of the necessary info, and plan to add other info from my home management binder. That way I can keep personal info in my binder, and take it with me or put it away so the sitter doesn't need to see it...she'll have her own sitter binder to use instead.

I think I finally learned my lesson when my son was hurt. I was very thankful that we were dressed and ready to go, because the doctor's office was already closing and they said they could only wait fifteen minutes for us. If he and I had to get ready, there wouldn't have been enough time, we couldn't have gone in. And the injury really wasn't serious enough for an emergency room visit. Who wants to pay five hundred dollars and wait three hours to be told "he'll be fine, just give him ice cream and pudding for the next 24 hours." Yikes! So being "ready for anything" came in handy. Well, ALMOST ready for anything...we never did find his sneakers. I had to carry him into the doctor's office, lol. I'm glad he's only four!! :-)

Diving into the Dining Room

Journey to Homemaker

Boy, I could swear I blogged yesterday. Guess not! Well, I was pretty busy! I really hated the way the dining room (really a dining area) was looking, full of junk it had accumulated. So I dragged everything into the living room. I just bought a table to use temporarily til I can find a cheap dining room table. It's one of those heavy duty long plastic tables with the folding metal legs. This particular table also folds in half and has a carrying handle. But it's narrower than I want, and not heavy enough...the kids have pushing matches with the table! So I plan to return it. But since it folds in half, it was easy to get out of the room, which was nice.

I swept the floor, dry-swiffered it, wet-swiffered it, and mopped it twice. Looks pretty good, the best it's looked since we moved here. I vacuumed out the chairs with the booster chairs on them, and put them back. (I was glad to find those heavier wooden chairs, because my son had tipped over in the folding chair with the booster on it, and bit his tongue BAD.) Then I moved one of the free dressers I got into the dining room. It's chipped and really old, but it will do for now. There's another set of two low dressers I plan to repaint and move in there, but I haven't picked them up yet. So for now this old tall white one will hold my table linens and some of the baby's pajamas, for quick changes.

On that dresser I put a Battenburg lace runner, a picture of my baby, and a bud vase with a few carnations in it. Just adding those touches distracts from the ugliness of the dresser.

Fresh flowers make an amazing difference in the house! My husband recently brought home a bouquet of wildflowers, which I've decided I like much better than roses. I love roses that smell nice, but most store roses don't anymore, and don't last long at all. The wildflower bunches always last a long time, and then you can get rid of the flowers that are wilted and still have a few good looking ones. Alstromeria (sp?) are so pretty, and last a long time. We can get those flowers for about $5 a bunch. I've decided that as long as we're not broke, I'm going to buy a bunch every two weeks, and have one vase on the table, and take a few buds and put them in bud vases around the house.

On the dining room table I put a red jaquard tablecloth and a round, white linen doily (it MUST be linen, I just couldn't get it pressed well) with crocheted lace trim, and a glass vase of flowers on top. Looks pretty good for a plastic table with mismatched chairs!

My husband really liked what I had done. Unfortunatley, I was up so late, I ended up with a big mess to put away, from all the junk I'd left in the living room! :-( But the living room is almost picked up, and after that I plan to start on the kitchen. The counters are a mess, and there's unpacked boxes of kitchen junk stuffed in a bunch of cabinets...and some unused cabinets! Time to tackle that. The dining room isn't perfect still--didn't dust the trim or the ceiling fan, etc. But with the kitchen and other rooms so messy, they take priority over deep cleaning.

It makes me feel better getting stuff accomplished, and I'm so happy to sit and stare at my clean dining room! :-D

Master Bedroom Cleaning Spree

Journey to Homemaker

I've recently been reading some great blogs. One is www.the-sparrows-nest.com. She's new, but her blog is so interesting and inspiring. Also www.xanga.com/MrsCatherine. She has a magazine and a yahoo group, too. Her house is soooo nice. She has been posting a lot lately on organization, decluttering, and cleaning. She talks about doing one drawer of decluttering at a time. I haven't been able to do that lately, but I got a lot done yesterday, including a few drawers, one at a time.

Yesterday, my husband was off work, so he watched the children for me so I could FINALLY get some work done. Lately the baby wants to nurse all the time when she's awake, and when she's asleep I am feeding, changing and caring for the other children. I can barely keep the house tidy. So I folded four loads of laundry and put it away (wow, what a concept!), refolded and put away the piles of folded clean laundry all over it for the last two months (I'm not kidding, it was since before the baby was born), changed the sheets on the master bed (it's been way too long), vacuumed (even longer), emptied the overflowing trash can (told you I'm a bad housekeeper), and actually MADE the bed! My husband was thrilled. We don't have any furniture in our bedroom right now except for my nightstand--unless you count a mattress on the floor and my husband's cardboard box "nightstand"--so keeping the room clean is really important.

I also organized five kitchen kitchen drawers. They look really great! I can actually find stuff. Oh, and the dishwasher is fixed, so there's actual CLEAN DISHES in the cabinets!!! Wooo hooo! I hate doing dishes, and it takes a long time by hand, so with all the kids I usually don't get to it often enough, so my wonderful husband does them for me. But he only does them every few days, so you can imagine the mess and hassle in my kitchen, never having a spoon clean when you need it. My fault, not his. My clean drawers make me so happy, I plan on doing a few more, plus some bathroom drawers in the next few days.

If I can just get on top of the laundry and the kitchen, it will make my life so easy. My husband is thinking of applying for an in-company transfer and promotion to a job in another state, so I really want to unpack now, for the first time in our almost five year marriage. If he gets it, it would be the first professional move we've had, so I want everything unpacked and organized, so it can be easily unpacked and arranged if we move. Plus, it would be nice to look for something and know where to find it! :-)

Making Progress

I am pretty proud of myself today. So far, I've exercised, taken my vitamins, done two loads of laundry, folded one load AND put it away (seriously, that's a major feat for me), and made my husband's lunch. I also prompted my 3 year old son to tell his Daddy "thank you for working so hard for our family." I am trying to make sure my husband feels appreciated, and teach my children to show him the same appreciation.

Now, I admit to feeding my kids PB&J sandwiches for lunch...again...but I'll follow up with fruit, and make sure their dinner is more diverse and balanced.

I am hoping to clean the toilets today, they're getting bad. If I can find the toilet scrubber! We just moved (again) so everything is still in boxes in one room. I am planning today to move the boxes into some of the empty closets so the house looks more presentable. That way, I can work on it one box at a time and not feel overwhelmed by a huge messy room. I also want to catch up on the laundry today. At the very least, I'd like to do one more load, and fold everything that's been washed so far (two other loads from last night, one that was already waiting on the dryer, and two more from today). That's a pretty ambitious day for me, if I complete it, I will be REALLY proud of myself!

Part of why I've been so depressed lately is because I have come to hate who I am. I know I'm slacking off, and can be doing a lot better. But when you get in a rut and get depressed, it's hard to find the motivation to change that. But I'm doing it in baby steps, and finding that the more I do, the easier it is to do it. Yay, me!